Globally CCAs are known as ICCAs or Territories and Areas Conserved by Indigenous People and Local Communities. ICCAs have gained international interest for their significance in the big conservation picture. Thanks to the efforts of a network of a large number of individuals and organizations across the globe called TILCEPA, the Fifth World Parks Congress, organised by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in September 2003 in Durban, South Africa, recognized ICCAs as a valid model for conservation. The Seventh Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), held in Kuala Lumpur in February 2004, as also recognized ICCAs and had governments all over the world committing to move towards participatory conservation with the recognition of community rights. CBD’s Programme of Work on Protected Areas explicitly (PoWPA) mandates countries to recognize ICCAs, and integrate them into national protected area systems (https://www.cbd.int/meetings/COP-07).
Kalpavriksh is a founding member of the ICCA Consortium (International Consortium on ICCAs) which is involved in international and national support activities towards ICCAs. The increased international recognition has encouraged World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which maintains a database of all the protected areas across the world, to maintain a database of ICCAs (www.ICCAregistry.org).
After the pioneering documentation of CCAs in 2009, Kalpavriksh coordinated, on behalf of the ICCA Consortium, a global study of ICCA recognition and support of territories and areas conserved by indigenous people and local communities. This was published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity as its Technical Series 64 and includes 19 Country Level case studies, a global overview, and various resource materials.